


in sickness and in health

by writingpenguin



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Communication, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, obligatory sick fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 08:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13632798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingpenguin/pseuds/writingpenguin
Summary: “Why do you always doubt how much you’re worth to me, Yuuri?”(or: Even with a fever, Yuuri struggles to prove that he is worthy. Victor struggles to prove that he already is.)





	in sickness and in health

A cough is nothing in the wild chaotic peak of the figure skating season—something so easily ignorable in the midst of other more pressing pains: the stiffness of his hamstring, the bruises on his feet, the mild strain of his hips. His throat isn’t strictly necessary in skating, so when Yuuri wakes up one morning to sniffles and slightly enlarged tonsils, he doesn’t do anything more than take an aspirin to preemptively ward off the headache that he knows he’ll get and drink an extra glass of water.  

Yuuri is an adult. He has learned long ago how to take care of himself—or at least, he has learned how to make the most out of shittier situations than skating through sore throats. A cough is nothing.

_It’s nothing,_ Yuuri resolutely thinks to himself as he watches his fiance haggardly getting ready for the day, observing the darkening shadows under determined eyes. There are barely three weeks to Russian Nationals (and Japanese Nationals), and if Victor wants to successfully return to Worlds this season, then he must first do well in his homeland. New routines, costumes, and a Yuuri to coach. Yuuri worries; he does not want to needlessly burden Victor. A cough is nothing, and Yuuri needs to perfect his skate, to assure Victor that he can focus a little more on his own self rather than on Yuuri. (In the grand scheme of things, Yuuri knows that he isn’t much—he’s just incredibly lucky to not have had immediately passed out in the banquet, to have had Phichit convince him to take pole dancing classes three summers ago, to have skating _otaku_ pseudo-nieces active in social media. In the whirlwind of everything that has gone by in the past year, Yuuri realizes that practically all that he thinks he has gained on his own merit has something to do with some strange stroke of fortune—he hasn’t achieved much to his name on his own. Not yet. Yuuri still has to prove himself. He needs to be better. _He can be better._ A cough is nothing.)

(He needs to show that he is enough, but _he knows he isn’t yet_. Thus, Victor must exert his efforts on much more worthy investments until Yuuri can prove himself worthy—Victor needs to focus on his comeback career and not on Yuuri’s little cough.)  

A cough is nothing. Yuuri has gone through anxiety attacks and sleepless nights in college on a weekly basis. _A cough is nothing,_ he tells himself when he opens his eyes to a pounding headache and a mild fever on the fourth day of his illness. He spends most of the morning in a haze, and it’s a miracle that Victor has decided to go to the rink ahead of him today because they both need that extra time—Victor needs more practice; Yuuri needs to get his shit together.

He is trembling, half due to the chills he’s feeling and half due to the fact that he’s panicking because he can’t let Victor find out—the only reason why he allowed himself to train St. Petersburg in the first place was because he swore that he would do his best to make Victor happy. Living with Yuuri makes Victor happy. (Yuuri still doesn’t know why that is so, but he decides not question a gift-horse in the mouth.) A sick Yuuri would certainly not make Victor happy. This is logic.

Thus,

Yuuri grips the railing as he steps onto the ice, a wave of vertigo passing through him. He sighs frustratedly, making a mental note to somehow buy medicine later with his limited Russian vocabulary and without Victor noticing. Yuuri skates a lap around the rink to warm up, intent on shaking off the dizziness with the cold air. His vision swims a little less.

A cough is nothing. Yuuri sees Victor motioning for him to start running through his free skate. He winces. He hopes that Victor doesn’t comment on the looseness of his spins and the sloppiness of his footwork. He can do this. He can. He can. A cough is nothing, and here comes the triple axel—one, two, th— _crash._

One. Two. Three. It takes Yuuri a few seconds too long to get up. His legs are jelly, and his breaths are uneven; the gulps of air that he takes in are too cold for his burning lungs. By the time Yuuri manages to balance himself again on his own two feet, Victor stands before him. _Ah,_ Yuuri thinks in resigned distress. _He noticed._ The world tilts violently from left to right, and Victor’s gaze sharpens. He loops an arm around Yuuri’s shoulder to steadily guide him to the mouth of the rink, not letting go until he sits him down onto a nearby bench.

“Yuuri,” Victor sighs, crouching in front of him as he cups the softness of his cheeks. He frowns at the heat of his lover’s skin. “You’re sick.”

Yuuri reluctantly hums in agreement, knowing he can’t escape the obvious, but he aims his focus elsewhere. He dreads the judgment that is surely present in eye-to-eye contact.

Making a discontented noise, Victor gently but firmly shifts Yuuri to face him. He pushes damp hair away, using a towel to wipe the clamminess of his fiance’s forehead. “What’s wrong, _lyubov moya?”_

Hearing the endearments rolling off his fiance’s tongue so smoothly—so naturally—leaves Yuuri curling into himself, guilt intertwining with his nerves because Victor is so  _nice and caring and warm,_ and it contrasts with the heavy, unexplainable weight of loneliness that Yuuri is desperate to control. Victor has been so busy planning choreography, practicing routines, mentoring Yuuri, touring Yuuri around the city, having to help Yuuri settle in a completely foreign environment, _Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri._ He’s already taken so much of Victor’s time and energy, and here he is once again, taking even more and more. _A cough is supposed to be nothing_. (He can’t even handle this? What a burden.) His chest tightens at the thought of disappointment— _of regret, of the idea of being given up._

He releases a shaky breath _._ “I’m sorry, Victor.”

Victor stills in his ministrations; his expression crumples into dismay, looking as if he can see the thoughts running through Yuuri’s mind. “Why are you apologizing? _”_

And _huh,_ there is no anger or disappointment—just Victor and all that he has for the man he loves. Yuuri doesn’t deserve this man—doesn’t deserve the way Victor’s fingers feather his temples, drawing light circular motions in an effort to calm him; doesn’t deserve the concern shining in the unwavering ocean blue of his eyes, always serving as an anchor to ground him to reality; doesn’t deserve Victor at all since Yuuri can’t even deal with something as trivial as a mere cough without falling apart.

Yuuri startles. A jacket is tucked snugly around him, and he glances up to Victor in surprise.

Victor offers him a worried smile, but the crease between his brows deepens in consternation. “You’re shivering. How long have you had this fever?”

Yuuri frowns, his own words eluding him. A moment passes before he recovers, disorientedly blinking away the confusion. That’s not what’s important anyway. What he needs to do is to tell Victor the truth. He needs to put Victor’s happiness over his. It’s the right thing to do.

Thus,

“I don’t deserve you,” Yuuri murmurs sadly, a little breathless with the numbness threatening to take hold of his entire being.

That Victor isn’t surprised with this response is as clear as day, but the lack of surprise does not mean he accepts it. His jaw locks, eyes screwing shut, as he resignedly exhales through his nose.

Yuuri curls into himself even further at the sight, expecting the worst.

But when Victor replies, it is with a hesitant plea, small and delicate, as if his voice no longer knows how to be heard against the anxious voices echoing throughout Yuuri’s mind. “Do you really believe that? You know that’s not true. I love you. We love you. You are so loved, Yuuri—so _so loved_ , and you are worth that and so much more. Always.”

“Victor…”

“I’m… I’m sorry that I haven’t been paying attention, _solnyshko._ I didn’t realize that you were feeling this way. I haven’t even noticed that you were sick—and how long has this been going on? I haven’t been—I… Yuuri, I—”      

And here, Victor breaks off because Yuuri is frantically shaking his head. Yuuri can’t stand the fact that Victor thinks that this is his fault. Victor hasn’t been anything but the very best to Yuuri. The guilt should not be Victor’s to bear.     

“Yuuri?”

“I…” It’s hard for Yuuri to grasp at what he wants to say because the room around him swirls, and when Victor presses cool lips to the scorching heat of his forehead, he lets out a shuddering gasp. “I—I can’t…”

Something trickles down onto his lip, thick, pungent and metallic, and he watches Victor’s eyes widen in horror. Why? What’s wrong, Victor?

“ _Dermo.”_ He hears Victor curse, and that in itself rings the warning bells in his mind because Victor rarely ever swears. This means that Victor is upset. Oh. Oh, no. _What have you done this time, Yuuri?_ He pauses. _Vitya?_ He feels rather than sees the softness of the towel being held up to his nose. He tries to shove it away because—

“Victor—? I-I can’t breathe if you’re doing that,” Yuuri complains dazedly.

“Oh, _solnyshko.”_ Yuuri does not understand. He tries to identify this particular inflection in Victor’s voice. It sounds tired? Resigned? No, that’s too complicated. Feelings are complicated. It sounds sad. Yuuri is sad.

He says this aloud.      

Yuuri regrets it immediately. Even with the haze of fever, he recognizes the split-second heartbroken expression flashing across Victor’s face before it is hastily smoothed over by a concerned smile.  

“Come here,” Victor invites consolingly as he slowly pulls Yuuri down from the bench and onto the floor, gathering him into the loose embrace of his arms. Yuuri settles in the space between Victor’s legs and lets Victor cradle his head, slightly pushing it down and pinching the bridge of his nose to stop the blood from flowing. They hold this position for such a time that he loses himself into the incoherent spiral of his thoughts. Yuuri hardly notices the sensation of cloth dabbing at his cheeks; he doesn’t even quite realize that he is crying.

“Breathe through your mouth, darling.”

Yuuri gives no indications as to whether or not he has heard Victor, but Victor waits. He waits and waits, and when Yuuri’s breathing threatens to give way to wheezing, he lifts a cool hand to his nape. Victor counts patiently with deep measured breaths, nails lightly grazing Yuuri’s scalp, fingers trailing down Yuuri’s back; he gives comfort in the manner that he knows how to—through a multitude of soft touches, the constant reminder of his presence.

Eventually, Victor lifts the towel away from Yuuri’s nose, checking to see if the bleeding has already stopped. It has, but the sudden absence of pressure disorients Yuuri; he lets himself fall against Victor’s chest and stays there.

Neither move.

Sometimes, in moments like these, Yuuri likes to pretend that the world is small—that the air he breathes is the soft exhale sighed against his mouth, and that the hills he climbs are the slopes of strong shoulders that he marks as his own, scratches sliding down to the base of a spine. He can drown a million times in those eyes, overwhelmed with the depth of their never-ending affection for him; he can dance with the lilting edges and curves of Slavic accents for an eternity. And yet... there are still prayers that he whispers against the moue of swollen lips. Yuuri wants for nothing more than a world where he belongs in. Unquestioningly. Undoubtedly.

There are wishes in the close fluttering of his lashes.

There are promises that he wants to swear with the lulling beat of his heart.

 

(The world is not small.

...

Neither is his love.)

 

When Yuuri wakes, the world is dark, mostly. The bedside lamp casts a gentle glowing light, and Yuuri tilts his head to the side to see his fiance sitting up against the headboard, lazily thumbing through the pages of a well-worn book. His free hand unconsciously fiddles with the loose collar of Yuuri’s shirt, fingers skimming by his pulse as they feel the heat of his skin. There is familiarity in this. (For the first time since he has arrived in St. Petersburg, Yuuri does not feel inexplicably lost.) Victor makes Yuuri feel fondly warm, in the way champagne bubbles bloom from his stomach and spread through his chest, reddening his cheeks. Perhaps it is the fever, Yuuri decides; emboldened, Yuuri leans towards the wandering hand and plants a kiss on the inside of its wrist.

“Yuuri?” Victor sets down his book in surprise, pages face down, and lays the back of his hand against Yuuri’s brow. “How are you feeling?”

As with almost everything that has to do with worrying Victor about his general well-being, Yuuri avoids the question. He lets the slant of his mouth curve into something that is almost a smile. A cough burns in his throat; his voice is hoarse when he speaks. “Did you carry me here, Vitya?” He pauses, fingering the hem of his shirt in emphasis. “These aren’t my pyjamas, I think.”

Victor blinks slowly at that, and Yuuri doesn’t understand why he looks so entranced, like he wouldn’t mind doing nothing but stare at Yuuri for the next hour.

“Yes… and yes. We used Yakov’s car.” Victor shifts, grabbing the pitcher on the nearby table to pour Yuuri some water. “The shirt is mine. The boxers are yours.”

A mug is suddenly placed directly in his line of view, and Yuuri grows ever more confused. He eyes it suspiciously, inspecting every minute detail on its surface. Yuuri accusingly narrows his gaze. This is not the limited edition matryoshka-designed Starbucks tumbler which Phichit gifted him with on his birthday a couple of years ago—it was an unsubtle reference to Russia but a completely subtle homage to Victor Nikiforov. Yuuri uses it for bad days. Sick days are bad days.

“Yuuri?”

Yuuri jumps, snapping back to attention. Right. He’s still glaring at the not-tumbler. He smiles at Victor reassuringly and takes the drink. “This isn’t mine but okay.”

Victor returns the smile, although not without some level of concern. “What’s mine is yours, _solnyshko.”_

Yuuri levels him with an unreadable look because he suddenly realizes the part that Victor is playing—the cautious Victor, the Victor who treats him as if he were a scared wild animal (as if he is going to break at any moment). He bristles, and in an almost reprimanding in the way, he answers, “...So why am I not wearing your boxers?”

_There._ Victor’s smile relaxes, stretching into a delighted grin. “Would you want me to take mine off?”

Raising his mug in a gesture of cheers, Yuuri drains the drink but forgets his awkward half-lying position on the bed. Water spills from the corner of his lips, and he hastily lifts his neckline to wipe his chin. “Hmm,” he mumbles. “Smells like you.”

Victor raises his brows, bemused, as he takes back the empty mug. “It’s freshly laundered.”

“You’re freshly laundered.”

The light of mirth dances in Victor’s eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense.”  He hums in observation. “You don’t really have a filter when you’re sick, do you?”

Yuuri grumbles. “Phichit says I don’t.”

Victor’s laugh echoes playfully bright around the room. “Oh? And what does Yuuri say?”

“I say whatever comes to mind?”

“Like what?”

Yuuri shrugs helplessly. “Ask, and you shall receive.”

Though mentioned in a nonchalant tone, these words have gravity. And perhaps that is why the mood suddenly changes—it becomes a little more serious, a little more intense—and Yuuri observes this in the way Victor watches him consideringly. He sees this in the way Victor moves to lower himself onto his side, his body parallel to Yuuri’s own as if drawn closer like a moth is to a flame. When Victor reaches out for Yuuri again, Yuuri wonders. _Ask and you shall receive,_ he has just said _._ And he means it. _I will give anything you ask of me._ Give and take. Love and be loved. He wants and wants, and he wants Victor to want. But: _is it enough? Am I enough?_

Ask and you shall receive.

_Meet me halfway,_ he begs, the plea echoing into the chambers of his heart, and it beats faster, anxious as a thundering drum in the midst of a war. He fights for sanity.

“Alright,” Yuuri hears, and he finds himself staring into the green flecks of iridescent blue mere inches away. “Alright. Let me ask. Tell me you love me.”

This is not a question, but it’s not quite a demand either. Yuuri shuts his eyes in breathless laughter. After all, this is the best way for Victor to respond—he shows Yuuri that he is needed. What Victor asks for is reassurance, and Yuuri gives it to him wholeheartedly.

“ _Aishiteiru,”_ Yuuri confesses, tongue curling over the sincerity found in the native syllables of his language. In his country, this is usually left unspoken, merely implied in the everyday life of a couple. _Suki da. Daisuki da yo._ No. If he is going to express himself, then it should be with the intimacy of the closest of lovers—Victor is much too close to his heart for him to ever consider less. “ _Ya tebya lyublyu._ That should never be in doubt, Vitya.” The fog that sickness imposes on his mind has no bearing on the clarity of this fact.

A stray eyelash rests near the bridge of Victor’s nose, silver on pale skin, lying on the almost indiscernible freckles that Yuuri adores. It is when Yuuri notices this that Victor says next:

“Tell me you trust me.”

“Without reserve,” Yuuri says as he catches the tiny strand, thumb swiping the fragile tissue right above Victor’s cheek. He holds it up for Victor to see. “Make a wish.”

The corners of Victor’s mouth turn up, the tenderness in his gaze remaining true. He takes the finger to his lips and blows. “Ask me.”

“What?”

“A relationship works both ways, _solnyshko._ ”

Yuuri’s eyes widen in realization. _Oh._ And his lips quiver around the words he has yet to form—the request that he has yet to make. “T-Tell me.”

“ _Yuuri.”_

 

(They say his love is selfish—that he is stealing Victor from the world. And it is true, isn’t it? He has brought Victor down from the clouds of the highest of peaks to the ground as a mortal and no longer a god, and they all loathe him for it. _You will drag him down with you,_ they screech. _You will drag him deep into the abyss, besmirch his name, and ruin his legacy for your love._

Victor will drown in Yuuri’s demons. He sees it in the shadows under Victor’s eyes, darkened after offering comfort in his sleepless nights. He hears it in the long sighs exhaled after a fall on a triple jump that Victor has barely ever missed in his senior career. Victor will drown. He will wilt.    

But:

Yuuri also knows—

_When Victor loves, he is radiant; and he smiles with the brightness of the morning sun, humming along the birdsong of coffee kisses, trailing cheeks, a forehead, a neck—_

And Yuuri remembers—

_—the flush of Victor’s skin glowing in afternoons of satisfied skates, of lingering touches, of stolen glances and affectionate teasing, both secret and unashamedly public—_

And Yuuri craves—

_—the ridiculous brilliance of a pout fondly worn, the misstep in a spontaneous dance under the romance of cliched candlelight._

Persephone did not wilt in the underworld. Neither will Victor, not when he presses closer to taste pomegranate seeds of his own, soothing bitten red lips with deliberate choice and care.

Thus,

_Tell me you trust me._ )

 

“Tell me you love me.”

Immediately, Victor takes the hand he holds, twin gold bands brushing against each other as he brings it over to feel his heart. _Ba-dump. Ba-dump._ There is no hesitation when he recites this loud and clear: “In joy and in sorrow, I will cherish you. In sickness and in health, I will love you the same. I will listen to you, encourage you, trust you, and choose you—”

“Vitya.”

“Yuuri,” Victor responds in kind, eyes crinkling warmly.  

Yuuri sniffles. _“Vitya.”_

For the second time that day, tears fall—slowly, at first, onto Victor’s already waiting fingers, drying as he wipes them away; then the dam breaks, and they pour out of him, ugly sobs wracking through Yuuri’s frame as he gasps and hides his face with his hands, only for Victor to gently set them aside not a moment later.

“Again, Yuuri,” Victor says as he cups Yuuri’s face with a sweet caress, heedless of slick snot and tears and instead holding him as if he were the most precious of treasures. (And maybe, just maybe, Yuuri can finally begin to accept that he is—completely and irrevocably _treasured._ ) “I will choose you again as I have chosen before, and as I have chosen now.”

A burst of warmth against his forehead, and Yuuri hiccups, whines, laughs, _reacts_ to the poignancy of the emotion bubbling inside him. It hurts, this overwhelming relief; it shudders through him, through the confused mess of sore nerves and muscles until Victor anchors him down to reality—warm hands and tender-hearted smiles under the lamplight.

“Wedding vows, Vitya?” Yuuri rasps in awed disbelief, laying a hand over the one on his cheek. “You’re so sure?”

With an almost aching sincerity, Victor confesses, “I’ve been sure since Barcelona, _solnyshko_.”

“How?” Yuuri asks, thumb tracing knuckles in an effort to just _feel;_ the physical reminder of this ethereal reality rests under his unrelenting touch. “How are you so sure of me?”

“Have faith,” Victor reprimands lightly. “Why do you always doubt how much you’re worth to me, Yuuri?”

Yuuri shakes his head slowly. “It isn’t that. I don’t doubt you.”

Victor frowns. “Then what is it?”

“It’s just that… Sometimes,” Yuuri whispers, eyes downcast in self-deprecation. “Sometimes, I’m afraid that I’m holding you back.”

“From what?” Victor carefully asks.

“From the ice. From your legacy.”

Victor’s grip on him grows just a bit tighter, his gaze a bit more distant. “From competition, you mean? Don’t you think I’ve spent too long building my legend, _solnyshko?_ I’ve dedicated most of my life to chasing gold, pleasing sponsors, defending titles…” His voice cracks. “Has it ever crossed your mind that I might be tired of it all?”

With a growing sense of dread, Yuuri breathes in and raises his eyes to Victor’s. “Did you even want to skate this season, Victor?”

“Of course I do,” says Victor, always quick to assure. “Skating with you makes me very happy.”

“But you just said—”

“And I meant what I said. I was tired. Burned out.”

“So why—?”

“Let me finish,” Victor interrupts firmly. “I _was_ tired, so very tired. It’s devastating, Yuuri—to start to hate something you love. I tried so hard to stay on the ice, but everything… everything was just the same. Overwhelming. Dull. Routine. I had given up so much to get to that point. Sochi. By then, I was just so grateful to have someone give back.” Victor pauses meaningfully. “I am so grateful to _you_ , Yuuri.”

“For what? The banquet?” Yuuri protests, brows scrunched in confusion and incredulity. “I was a pole dancing drunk! I can’t even remember what I said to you, Victor—”  

He breaks off coughing, moving to sit up, and Victor pats him on the back, watching him with concern. Victor waits until the bout passes before responding. “The banquet was just the start. You’ve said _plenty_ of things, my darling, but that’s a story for another time,” Victor answers in fond exasperation. “What matters is that you have made me see something beyond myself. You have made me see a future that I want to have. _Have faith, Yuuri._ You’ve done enough for me.”

Yuuri sighs, leaning back; he trusts Victor to catch him, and of course, he does.  “You’ve done more.”

“Hmm.” A hand covers his eyes, closing them gently. “Is this a competition, _solnyshko?_ ”

“No.”

The duvet is pulled snug around them. “Then let me do more. Let me take care of you.”

“It’s just a cough, you know. It’s nothing.”

“Hush. Rest.” There’s a light sensation on his neck. “Your fever hasn’t broken yet. You can’t continue my legacy if you stay sick,” Victor teases.

_Legacy._ A challenge if he’s ever heard of one. The lump in his throat grows. Yuuri removes the hand from his face but chooses to remain in the blessed dark. The beginnings of sleep ease the strain of his swollen lids; he wipes away the trails of drying salt that has still managed to escape. “Stop making me cry, Vitya.”

If silence settles in between them, it does not suffocate. There is familiarity in this—their soft, affecting intimacy, their forgiving ardency.

“What would you have me do then?” Victor asks, words muffled as he nuzzles against Yuuri’s head.

“Nothing else,” Yuuri mumbles. “This is enough.”

“It is,” Victor agrees, chuckling tiredly. “Ask me again.”

Oh. How wonderful. _I am loved. I am loved. I am loved._

Yuuri breathes, “Tell me you love me.”

Fingers combing through his hair. “Again.”

“Tell me you love me.”

A shared secret in his ear. “Again.”

_“Love me.”_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ayyy comments and kudos are always appreciated!!
> 
> i also exist on [tumblr](http://theaveragepenguin.tumblr.com/).


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